Chen follows up a celebration of unlikely siblings in Guji Guji (2004) with an equally captivating look at an unusual friendship. As related in parallel split-page narratives, Artie the lion gets extensive instruction from his father in hunting yummy rabbits, while Julie the rabbit’s father carefully trains her to escape fierce lions. Simultaneously venturing out into the wild, the two younglings stuff themselves on jellyberries, take refuge from a storm in the same cave and instantly bond. After a day of playing leaping and roaring games, the two return to their respective homes and relate to their befuddled parents a role-reversing bedtime story about making friends. The two new friends’ meeting and play take place on traditional full pages, splitting again as they go their separate ways home—a nifty device. Though Julie’s large, red spike heels strike an odd visual note, the pictures’ soft hues and smiling, simply drawn cartoon animal figures score high on child appeal. A worthy addition to any “waging peace” list. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-9787-5503-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Heryin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2008
Give this child’s-eye view of a day at the beach with an attentive father high marks for coziness: “When your ball blows across the sand and into the ocean and starts to drift away, your daddy could say, Didn’t I tell you not to play too close to the waves? But he doesn’t. He wades out into the cold water. And he brings your ball back to the beach and plays roll and catch with you.” Alley depicts a moppet and her relaxed-looking dad (to all appearances a single parent) in informally drawn beach and domestic settings: playing together, snuggling up on the sofa and finally hugging each other goodnight. The third-person voice is a bit distancing, but it makes the togetherness less treacly, and Dad’s mix of love and competence is less insulting, to parents and children both, than Douglas Wood’s What Dads Can’t Do (2000), illus by Doug Cushman. (Picture book. 5-7)
Pub Date: May 23, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-00361-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
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